


When You Called a Kid the Future, What Did You Expect?

by Kunabee



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-12 00:40:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29501442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kunabee/pseuds/Kunabee
Summary: Why are kids always the heroes, anyway?Chara has a nightmare. Everyone else is away, but Flowey's there.
Relationships: Chara & Flowey (Undertale), Chara & Frisk (Undertale), Flowey & Frisk (Undertale)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23





	When You Called a Kid the Future, What Did You Expect?

**Author's Note:**

> i was editing my novel and preparing my poetry into a book to publish.
> 
> and then this happened.

_You are the future of heroes and monsters...!_

Chara wakes from the nightmare with a jolt, their heart pounding. They scrabble for the light, their eyes burning with tears. They refuse to cry. They're not a crybaby.

...The Dreemurs and Frisk say its okay to cry.

They bury their head in their hands, their breathing jerky. They're at Papyrus's house because Toriel and Frisk are off doing ambassador things. They had told Frisk not to accept, Asgore had given the offer and Toriel had disapproved, but of course they said _yes_. Frisk always said yes, to everything and everyone except _Chara_.

No. That wasn't true.

Still, they saw Frisk losing their childhood the same way they had lost theirs. Even though Frisk gave them this second chance...

Papyrus was the only one who acted normally around Chara. He was also one of the few people Flowey could stand, even with Flowey's budding soul.

 _"I don't_ understand _! I can't understand! Why are you being so nice to me?!"_

Their breath hitches, and they slide out of bed. Their head spins. Having a body after a hundred years of being aimless and floating is still disorienting. They're not sure that they'll ever get over it. They want Frisk. They don't want to suffocate them, the way they suffocated Asriel. Chara clings and they cling and they cling, leeching like a parasite. But Frisk wants them around.

Toriel and Asgore do, too, even if Chara can tell it hurts them. Even if it hurts Chara, knowing they're the ones responsible for ruining the relationship. And Papyrus wants Chara around. Sans... Sans is inscrutable, but they're pretty sure Sans at least accepts them now.

Once they and Frisk explained all the ~~murder~~.

It's late. The moon shines through their window. Papyrus was gone and Sans would be asleep. They don't want to deal with their ~~perfectly valid~~ pain on their own.

Their therapist says it's valid, anyway. Even if some of the things they say make their therapist freeze up, make her bite her lip, make her take slow and measure breaths as she puts together the pieces and figures out what to say. It's contrived, but it helps? Sometimes. A lot of the time.

So they make their way to the garden. Sure enough, Flowey is there amongst the flowers, looking up at the stars. They sit across from him, not caring about getting dirt on their pajamas or bare feet.

They lick their lips, look up at the sky. "The stars sure are pretty, huh?" they ask him. Their heart clenches.

Flowey looks over at them. He's caustic, but the sting feels good. It's just fair play, the way they used to treat him ~~when he was Asriel~~. "Another bad dream? Jeez, what is it, the third one this week?" he scoffs.

They can hear the care in the words, see the worry in his eyes. Even as Flowey, they know him better than they know themself. "I know, right? This time it was about Ga ~~ster~~." The name pops and fizzes on their tongue.

Flowey, Frisk, Chara, Sans, Papyrus: the five people who could remember him. It was just another burden on hunched shoulders, the future of human and monsters, the series of mistakes that left kids cleaning up the messes of adults. Chara related to young adult protagonists in movies and novels way more than they probably should. The kids were the heroes. The adults just fucked up.

_"What are you doing here?" His hand latched around their skinny wrist like a vise, his skull entirely fused into one smooth mass but still resembling a skeleton's so, so clearly. They thought he was Death, come to take them away to hell because this afterlife was a mistake._

Chara's grown older now. They're not scared of old skeletons anymore, whether or not they became scattered across time and space, but nightmares have a way of turning you back into the kid that was called demon, parents that hated you still fresh in your mind and unable to call your _real_ parents 'Mom and Dad'.

"I'm glad he's gone," Flowey says. "He was stupid, anyway."

"He probably wouldn't have put determination in a flower," Chara points out.

"Well, yeah. I like existence."

Those three words carry more than anything. Chara and Flowey used to want to die, like, all the time. Flowey was afraid of death - the Big Unknown, Frisk called it; you didn't know what was on the other side - but Chara had had to have their knives taken away.

Chara takes a deep breath. "Me, too."

The two of them lapse into silence, staring at the stars and the moon. Flowey never saw them when he was Asriel. Chara remembers a time, though, when they used to dream of flying through space. They wonder if they could point out which star was Mars, where there was a whole _colony_ now.

Earth was good enough for them, these days.

"You should go back to sleep." Flowey's voice breaks through their thoughts.

"So should you." They grab his pot that's been knocked to the side, and he reluctantly climbs in as they settle more dirt around his roots. Frisk diligently attached wheels and steering and all kinds of things to it, with Sans's help. Flowey needs to stretch pretty regularly, though.

Chara washes off their feet and hands, brushes off the dirt in the bathroom. Flowey gets set on the nightstand, both of them in the light of the moon through the window.

"Night, Chara," Flowey says. His voice sounds...

"Night, Azzy."

They're already asleep.

And for the both of them, for everything they lost and everything they have _gained_ , Flowey cries.


End file.
